Player's Guide

Everything the tutorial teaches and everything it doesn't. Updated October 2026.

The loop in one paragraph

Pick a building on the Jobs tab and run the heist yourself. Carry the copper home, sell it on the Sell tab, and spend the cash on three competing needs: feeding your Dependency before it hits 100%, upgrades that make runs safer and richer, and crew who steal while you're busy. Bigger targets unlock as you complete jobs — and re-lock if you flame out. That tension between reinvesting, surviving, and getting greedy is the whole game.

Heist controls

• Move: WASD or arrow keys; on phones, the on-screen pad.
• Grab copper: walk over a wire coil. Your bag has a weight cap — gear raises it.
• Dig a stash: stand touching any side of a copper-flecked wall and hold still. Digging is loud: anyone within earshot gets suspicious, through walls. Finished digs leave a hole you (and guards) can path through.
• Smash a camera: stand under it and hold still — same noise rules as digging.
• Throw a bottle: click/tap a spot, or press Space to lob one the way you're facing. The crash pulls nearby guards to investigate. Buy them on the Upgrades tab.
• Escape: return to the green door. Bail (Esc) gets you out but forfeits the loot.

Security, and how each type thinks

Watchmen

Patrol looping routes with a flashlight cone. The cone is blocked by walls — standing one brick around a corner is safe. If the cone holds you, their alert bar fills; full bar or physical contact trips the alarm. Suspicious watchmen move faster, so a half-filled bar is your cue to relocate, not freeze.

K-9 units

Short sight, excellent ears: a dog hears you moving within a few tiles even through walls. The counter-play is patience — stop moving when one trots near, and route around dog territory when carrying a heavy bag. Dogs chase faster than anything else once the alarm sounds.

Cameras

Wall-mounted, sweeping between two angles, with the longest sight range in the game — but blind forever once smashed. Here's the accounting: smashing costs ~2.5 loud seconds now; every camera still running when you exit adds +10 Heat, even on a flawless run. On low-heat days you can eat the penalty; past 50 Heat, those penalties are what bust you.

The alarm

Getting sensed doesn't end the run — it starts a lockdown countdown while every guard converges on you at speed. You have seconds to reach the door; escaping under the alarm keeps your loot at double Heat. When it's hopeless, remember a dug-out stash hole can be a back exit.

Heat: the city's memory

Heat rises from jobs, risky fences, surviving cameras, and alarm escapes; it falls slowly on its own, or faster with paid cool-offs on the Sell tab. It bites at every threshold: each 25 Heat staffs one extra watchman in every building; at 75+ the premium fences stop answering; at 100 you're busted — cash and copper confiscated (a Floor Safe protects most of it) and, worst of all, your reputation resets: every target above the bottom tier re-locks until you grind your job count back. Treat 60+ Heat as an emergency, not a lifestyle.

Dependency: the clock that never stops

It climbs every second you play. Past 70% your hands shake — you move slower in heists and fail more. At 100% you crash: a lost week, the stockpile gone, the crew gone, the ladder reset. Consumables on the Upgrades tab knock it down (Tonic for maintenance, Blue for emergencies). The rookie mistake is spending every dollar on gear and "saving" on the habit; the habit does not negotiate.

Selling: three fences, one decision

Honest Hank pays worst and asks nothing — zero Heat, always. Back Alley Benny pays ~40% more at moderate Heat. The Magnet pays nearly double Hank — and charges 0.14 Heat per pound, minimum 10. Selling 200 lbs to him is +28 Heat: one extra guard everywhere, immediately. The market index also drifts constantly (55–180, where 100 is normal) — with storage space, holding for a spike beats any fence choice. High-Heat players sell to Hank and sleep fine; greedy players time the market, batch big sales to the Magnet, then pay for Lie Low. Both are viable. Mixing them up is how you get busted.

Spending it

• Housing (tent → motel → room → apartment → house): more storage, faster energy, crew beds, and it gates the biggest targets.
• The Floor Safe ($750, needs the motel): the single most important purchase. Without it, one bad run costs every dollar and pound you own.
• Carry gear (backpack → cart → van → trucks): bigger bags and faster feet in heists.
• Crew: six characters with skill, loyalty, and upkeep. They generate copper automatically — pay them or they quit, steal, or get arrested loudly. Take one into a heist as a partner for extra bag space; they can be caught permanently, so don't bring Big Mike anywhere with dogs until your Heat is low.

Going legit

At $50,000 cash you can sell the operation and register a "legitimate" recycling company. Everything resets — cash, copper, housing, crew — but every prestige level permanently grants +10% scrap value, −8% Heat generation, +1 crew capacity, and starting cash. The ladder climbs from Recycling Company to Copper Conglomerate, and the costs double each time. Prestige right after a big sale, never mid-grind.

Ten tips the tutorial won't tell you

1. The Shed and Scrap Pile are never a waste — they're free Heat-decay time that still pays.
2. Scout a building's full patrol loop before grabbing anything; routes repeat.
3. Dig stashes first — the noise risk is cheapest before guards have any suspicion built up.
4. A bottle thrown behind a guard pulls them away; thrown ahead, it pulls them across your path.
5. Smash cameras near your exit route, eat the penalty on far ones when time is short.
6. Ghost runs (nobody ever suspicious) pay +10% copper — on big targets that's real money.
7. Crew Heat adds up while you play. Check it before deciding whether the Magnet is affordable.
8. Buy consumables before a long heist, not after — shaky hands in the Rail Yard is how empires end.
9. After a bust, your safe cash plus bottom-tier runs rebuild faster than you fear: the re-lock is on targets, not gear.
10. The Dependency always wins eventually. The question is how much you bank before it does — that's what Go Legit is for.

Copper Empire is satirical fiction for ages 13+. Nothing here is advice about anything real, except possibly the line about paying your crew on time.